Questions Answered
Do you get writer's block very often? Do you get it more or less when writing erotica vs. non-erotica, fiction vs. non-fiction, etc.? What would you generally do to get rid of it?
I used to convince myself I had writer's block, then I read a few things and thought about it and realized it was just a way to sabotage my writing.
Now I just write it out. Even if I feel blocked, just sit down and start writing. If you sit and write over and over again you train yourself to just write.
Also, if I'm not feeling the creative juices flowing I will edit or rewrite things or just pick up some fragment of old story.
Basically the answer is: just write.
What was the first masturbatory fantasy you had that you recall?Please describe it in gratuitous detail.
Tough on. I tend to masturbate thinking about flashes of memories and images, not to structured fantasies.
I do remember being a tween and thinking about putting my hand down my neighbor's pants a lot. There was something about it that my young brain wanted so badly. I knew if she just let me do that, then I would feel something so amazing I would explode.
What are your favorite body parts?
I'm a breast man. I love nipples more than I can explain. I also like just under the breasts, the soft crease where the breast meets the chest.
I'm a fan of lips, asses, and vulva in general.
What is your favorite dirty talk cliché?
"Fuck my pussy." In the heat of the moment it's pretty much what I like to hear. Adding "please" is nice. "Pretty please" is even better.
Since the 'sexual revolution' climaxed in the '60s, what can kinksters really add to it? We live in an increasingly sexualised world, where 'kink' is unremarkable, so what makes you special? Isn't celibacy the only real perversion left?
I don't do kinky things because they are a rebellion against the norm, I do them because they explore pleasure and pain and a whole array of things in my mind and body.
The fact that a lot more of kink is accepted in certain parts of the country means humanity is growing. There is still a long way to go, though.
As for real perversions, there are plenty of them. Celibacy is (purportedly) practiced by lots of people around the world. What's so perverse about that?
If you could be any fictional character, who would it be and why?
Batman. Because he is Batman.
I've noticed in your work a skillfully managed tension between something approaching a maximalist prose style and a muted emotional effect. Is this just the way the stories happen, or is it an aesthetic. If the latter, who would you cite as influences?
Minimalism is definitively a style I try for. Influences are David Foster Wallace, Dave Eggers, Thomas Pynchon. Muted emotional effect comes from noir narrators, mostly. Don DeLillo, I can hope.
I try and show characters who are both engaged in wild sexual and emotional acts through short descriptions so that the reader is looking at vivid, but black and white, pictures of shocking events. I want to invoke arousal, jealousy and the mix of guilt and pleasure that voyeurism brings.
This question made my little lit crit heart skip a beat. Thank you for it.
What qualities do you dislike most in a person? Which do you dislike most in yourself? Which do you admire most in yourself?
I can't stand apathy. People who lack curiosity have nothing to offer me.
I dislike my laziness. I've come very far in changing, though. Also I can be arrogant and snide.
I admire my wit. I can think on my feet.
I confess I asked the last lot of questions out of boredom and I hope you'll answer them! Two more: What interests you about race play? If you could live at any time in the past what would it be? What would you do without the internet?
I will answer all questions! Answering questions is just plain egotistical fun.
Race play is very edgy in my mind. Race is a hot button in my life. I went to the most ethnically diverse high school in the world. I have friends of all races, many of whom have experiences all manner of racism/stereotyping/so on. But as with most things that I find emotionally dangerous, thinking about it in a sexual way is hot and scary.
Humiliation is a fun thing to play with under the right circumstances. A person's psychical appearance, race, weight, morality, are the most personal and vulnerable things to play with, thus the most interesting.
I don't really want to live in the past, I like now. If I had to chose though, I would either pick Paris & NY between the two world wars or Rome at the height of the empire.
Without the internet? The mere idea is frightening beyond words. I really have no idea because I don't really remember a time without the internet. I guess I would save up for a good encyclopedia.
Are you going to write some colonial erotica?
Yes! Eventually. I have a lot on my plate right now. A lot of story ideas that I come up with site for months, even years before I start to seriously work on them. I think my best work comes from digging up old ideas and looking at them with fresh eyes.
A. What has your evolution as a writer been like? B. I'm curious as to your thoughts about writing about tantra without a spiritual element - isn't tantra inherently a religious or spiritual undertaking?
A. My evolution as a writer? I'm not sure how to tackle that question. I've always been a reader. I've always liked to write, more from an "I want to play with words" direction than an "I have a story to tell!" one.
I started reading and writing in science fiction and fantasy in my early teens. I think reading William Gibson made me think about writing in a different way and I moved on to reading noir/hardboiled fiction. Late high school and college led to a love affair with Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin which made me think writing erotica was something more than just secret dirty stories online.
I'm also working towards more "play" and post modern elements in my writing, since that is what I enjoy reading these days. David Foster Wallace, Italo Calvino, Robert Coover. Meta, breaking the 4th wall, mixed up/non-linear time lines, unreliable narration, stuff like that.
I'm still very much evolving. I am seeing what I need to do to get to the next level and make my work publishable (in a bigger way) and I am trying to move towards that.
B. I don't know the answer to that, but from my experience I have never seen anything that has proven that any sort of deity exists, nor any empirical evidence of of spirits, non measurable "energies" of psychic or spiritual varieties or chakras or anything else tantra or other sex magic(k)s talk about.
I have seen that meditation, focused breathing, concentration, &c have some physical effect of sex. I don't know if that effect is psychosomatic, if the whole thing is a "spiritual" placebo. It doesn't really matter that much to me, because people I know have been effected by techniques like the ones talking about in tantra, kama sutra, so on. I'd like to investigate these practices in a non-spiritual way.
How has being a native New Yorker affected your perspective on the world?
I tend to expect a lot from people, restaurants, museums, &c. I think multiculturalism is the norm, when in most places it isn't. I don't like emptiness. I don't like the country, farms, beaches, except for very brief vacations.
I don't get mad when people step on my toes or get aggressive or push past my boundaries. Well, ok, I get mad, but I don't dwell on it. This is a massive thriving place, teeming with life. Everyone has something to do and somewhere to be. I like that.
Being a native New Yorker has made me look at the world as something to be enjoyed, studied, explored and romanced. This city is a wild mysterious lover you never completely figure out.
Yeah, so I like NYC and stuff.
How do you get into the mind of your female characters?
I was raised by women. A bunch of them. I take what I learned from them and then add what I think my female readers would like to have me think about what they might be thinking about.
Though it is cooler to say what Jack said in As Good As it Gets "I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability."
Do you write any non-erotica? If not, why not?
Yes, I have published some non-erotica. My writing life seems to go in cycles where I consider my "literary fiction" my main writing and erotica my hobby, then I want to combine them, then I just get frustrated.
But yes, I do write non-erotica. I have also written science fiction.
Two questions (can I even do that?) - A) Describe the first time you met your girl. B)You said before as an answer to a question that you got 2 bad reactions from people finding your writing. What happened there?
A - I already wrote about it http://writingdirty.com/archives/34
B - Before I started this blog I was dating a librarian who I occasionally showed some of my dirty stories to. She used her research skills to find more of my stories online and there were some stories I wrote in the past that are pretty edgy. She read some of them and got pretty freaked out.
In general I have had lovers read stories and think that they were about them or not about them or think that just because I wrote about a specific thing that thing was the only thing I was looking for. I've had chubby girlfriend read stories and think that I only like skinny girls. I've had skinny girlfriends read stories and think I only like chubby girls. Vanilla girls who think they aren't kinky enough, etc.
There has been a lot of trouble caused by dirty writing, but the benefits far outweigh them.
What do you do when you are feeling lonely? by Mollena
I am an only child. I was a latchkey kid. I don't get lonely very often. In fact I often feel like I need to be alone. I I've in my head, I get lost in stories or fantasies. I think off.
I also have an awesome family, an amazing best friend and a super girl. Plus lots of new people.
So, yeah. This question made me feel good. Thanks.
Are you going to post about Suspension, or were you just writing about it for yourself? Inquiring minds want to know your impressions...
I'm working on it. It is difficult when there are so many people involved. You have to word things carefully. I don't like to name people specifically unless I ask them first and I don't feel like asking the... ten or so people involved.
I have a nice few hundred words though. It is being worked on.
Foodie question: Knowing that you cook, what would you say is your 'signature dish'? Also, what is your favorite restaraunt? by CorsetNCardigan
My signature dish changes a lot. Usually every year it shifts. Right now I would say it is my "Thai Curry Thing" which is sort of a spicy coconut stew with elements of Tom Ka Gai and often pineapples.
Other Jack classics are goat cheese quiche, beef stew and chili.
My favorite restaurant??
In the middle of Chianti country there is a little restaurant a couple runs. He takes the orders and she cooks. It takes a while because everything is made fresh, so in the meantime they send out little appetizers and amuse bouche.
The food is a mythical journal through Italy. Rich braised meats, light homemade pastas, interesting creations like a goat cheese raviolo with honey and sweet onions.
In NYC (thus in America) it would be hard to say. These days my tops are all amazing, but also very sentimental. Balthazar, Blue Water Grill, Peter Lugers, Blue Ribbon and Artisanal.
